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It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and consumers are packing their shopping baskets with pink products made by companies that pledge a portion of the proceeds to fight breast cancer.

But behind the corporate goodwill and fundraising, like today's Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at St. Petersburg's Vinoy Park, ripples of dissent are growing about the commercialization of breast cancer.

Some survivors and cancer groups say they are pleased the campaign has placed the disease in the forefront of women's minds.

But they believe the crusade against cancer should be less about shopping and more about preventing and finding the cause of the disease that kills about 40,000 each year, said Breast Cancer Action, based in San Francisco.

While death rates have fallen in recent years, a woman's odds of getting diagnosed has tripled in the past 50 years. In the 1960s, it was one in 20. Today, it is one in seven.

The advocacy group has called for more coordinated research aimed at prevention rather than treatment.

The foundation provides five questions consumers should ask on its Web site, komensuncoast.com, to help them decide whether products really benefit the breast cancer battle. She said it applies the same standards to its corporate partners.

"We don't partner with companies who just want to make buck," Hodges said. "We only partner with companies who are committed to the cause."

Pink products aside, Jan Luongo, a board member of the foundation's local affiliate, said no one should discount the awareness campaign's role in saving lives.

"Twenty years ago you couldn't say breast cancer on TV," she said. "It wasn't a common thing people talked about it.

"We want people to know about it. Now, just because you get a diagnosis, doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence like it used to."

But she said local Komen fundraising efforts paid for a mammography and biopsy for her after she could not get insurance.

"It is a lot of commercialization but if that gets one more person to get that mammography, it's worth it," Lang said. "When you're touched by something you look at things differently."

A more dangerous effect

One result of the pink movement is that many women have an undue fear of breast cancer, said Samantha King, an associate professor of kinesiology and health studies at Queen's University in Ontario.

They often underestimate heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death among women with 400,000 a year, 11 times as many as breast cancer. Lung cancer also surpasses breast cancer deaths.

King examined the breast cancer awareness campaign in her book, Pink Ribbons Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy.

She said most research dollars go toward treatment and screening instead of "research that might actually make a difference."

Some of the biggest sponsors of breast cancer awareness month are companies with an "interest in women continuing to be diagnosed with the disease," King said, because they make drugs to treat it and equipment used in mammography.

AstraZeneca, which manufactures the breast cancer drug Arimidex, is one of the awareness month's main sponsors and helped start the campaign to encourage early detection.

A company official said its motive is not financial.

"The company truly has a dedication to patient education and patient awareness," said AstraZeneca's Kate McKenzie, senior manager for National Breast Cancer Month. "You just can't make a product ... without informing people about the disease."

King concludes in her book that the breast cancer awareness movement has given supporters a false sense of progress.

"In spite of all the attention that's been paid to breast cancer and the money raised by pink ribbon products, very little has changed," King said.